Later Mughals v1.c4.s2.t1: His Later Mughals
Later Mughals v1.c4.s2.t1
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His Later Mughals
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With such a wealth of original Persian sources in his possession and his knowledge of continental tongues opening to him the East Indian records of the Dutch, French and Portuguese Governments, as well as those of the Christian missions to the East (especially the letters of the Society of Jesus), Mr. Irvine planned an original history of the decline of the Mughal Empire. It was entitled *The Later Mughals* and intended to cover the century from the death of Aurangzib in 1707 to the capture of Delhi by the English in 1803. As he wrote to me on 23rd February, 1902:—
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"I have first to finish the History from 1707 to 1803 which I began twelve years ago. At present I have not got beyond
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1738, in my draft, though I have materials collected up to 1759 or even later."
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But the work grew in his hands, and so conscientious a workman was he, so many sources of information did he consult, and so often did he verify his references, that his progress was slow and he lived to complete the narrative of only thirty-one years out of the century he intended to embrace in his work. Chapters of the *Later Mughals* appeared from time to time, once in the *Asiatic Quarterly Review*, but mainly in the *Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal*. Five years after writing the above to me, he thus speaks of the state of his undertaking in the *L'envoi* to its last published chapter (*J. A. S. B.*, November, 1908):
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"With the disappearance of the Sayyid brothers the story attains a sort of dramatic completeness, and I decide to suspend at this point my contributions on the history of the Later Mughals. There is reason to believe that a completion of my original intention is beyond my remaining strength. I planned on too large a scale, and it is hardly likely now that I shall be able to do much more...The first draft for the years 1721 to [April] 1738 is written. I hope soon to undertake the narrative of 1739, including the invasion of Nadir Shah. It remains to be seen whether I shall be able to continue the story for the years which follow Nadir Shah's departure. But I have read and translated and made notes for another twenty years ending about 1759 or 1760."
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These words were written in October 1907, and they show that the work had not grown at all during the preceding eight years. What lured Mr. Irvine away from the *Later Mughals* was his monumental edition of Niccolao Manucci's *Travels in the Mughal Empire*, the *Storia do Mogor*,—a work which entailed seven years of hard labour and about which I shall speak later. Another but lesser source of distraction was his monograph *The Army of the Indian Moghuls*, (1903)—a thoroughly sound and scholarly work, which will long endure as an indispensable dictionary of Persian, Turki and Hindi military technical terms. He hurriedly brought together in it the fruits of long years of study, lest he should be anticipated by Dr. Paul Horn, an eminent German orientalist, who had published a similar work on an earlier period of Muhammadan India. Chips from Mr. Irvine’s workshop were also published in the *Indian Antiquary*, the *Indian Magazine* (1903), the *Journal of the Moslem Institute* (Calcutta), and the *Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal*. Thorough in everything that he undertook, his careful editing and annotation cost him an immense amount of time even in the case of these bye-products of his historical factory.